Tuesday, 25 May 2010

Welcome to a new series of posts about comics both good and bad which have started well but seem to have drifted off into the ether, starting with Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto’s The Infinite horizon.

A year or two ago, whilst perusing the shelves of Fantastic Realm, my local, no longer extant comic shop my eye was drawn to this fruity little number. Not having heard anything about the book prior to this chance encounter, what first hit me was the art. Set in some near-future Middle Eastern conflict, the simple but expressive artwork of Phil Noto really shone. The palate was dramatically different to the bold superheroics or dark shadowy crime and crying comics I was reading at the time, and felt like a breath of fresh air. So enrapt was I by the package that it took two issues for me to realise that I'd read this story before.

Issue one opens with a small group of US soldiers finally ceding control of the last operative airstrip after what we’re led to believe was a gruelling, prolonged attack. The last plane leaves, leaving our heroes with a long walk home. The story follows this group's epic journey, interspersed with the struggles of the commander’s wife back on the home front; a fractured, bankrupt America. Our heroes are lost at sea, face a cruel 'Cyclops' on an island of slaves, while at home wife and son fight off the attentions of nefarious men who want their land and her *ahem*. Yep, you guessed it, it’s a (post)modern take on the Odyssey; the battle of Troy is The War Against Terror, and Classical Greece is a United States torn apart from within.

Now this may sound like a naff idea, but trust me on this, it’s a real class act. I don’t know why, but it seems to have stopped at issue 4 with no sign of recommencing any time soon, but I bloody well hope it does.

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comments:

It was Eisner nominated for best limited series, that's what has drawn my attention to this about 2 years ago. I put the TPB in my Amazon Wishlist, but it never came out. Issue 3 came out march 2008, issue 4 was march 2009...this year nothing so far...my guess, it's dead. The TPB was supposed 175 pages, so there is(depending on extra-amount) at the very least 2 issues missing.

Ash, about comics and greek mythology, there was a series called "Age of Bronze", it came out in 2 volumes, volume 2 was nominated for some real book award, but it was b/w and looked more fantagraphics like....so...uhmm...I sticked to Simone's Wonder Woman and van Lente's Herc.